Cigarette and nargileh smoking practices among school students in Beirut, Lebanon

OBJECTIVES: To determine the prevalence and predictors of smoking nargileh and/or cigarettes among school students in Greater Beirut, Lebanon. METHODS: A proportionate random sample of 2443 students from 13 public and private schools was selected and asked to complete self-administered anonymous questionnaires. RESULTS: The prevalence of smoking cigarettes only, nargileh only, and both was 2.5%, 25.6%, and 6.3%, respectively. Stepwise regression analyses revealed that the predictors of smoking for either type are different, whereby nargileh smoking is more culturally accepted than cigarette smoking. CONCLUSIONS: Design interventions to increase awareness towards the hazards of the misconceived harmless effects of nargileh smoking.     

Prediction of survival with multi-scale radiomic analysis in glioblastoma patients

We propose a multiscale texture features based on Laplacian-of Gaussian (LoG) filter to predict progression free (PFS) and overall survival (OS) in patients newly diagnosed with glioblastoma (GBM). Experiments use the extracted features derived from 40 patients of GBM with T1-weighted imaging (T1-WI) and Fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) images that were segmented manually into areas of active tumor, necrosis, and edema. Multiscale texture features were extracted locally from each of these areas of interest using a LoG filter and the relation between features to OS and PFS was investigated using univariate (i.e., Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient, log-rank test and Kaplan-Meier estimator) and multivariate analyses (i.e., Random Forest classifier). Three and seven features were statistically correlated with PFS and OS, respectively, with absolute correlation values between 0.32 and 0.36 and p?<?0.05. Three features derived from active tumor regions only were associated with OS (p?<?0.05) with hazard ratios (HR) of 2.9, 3, and 3.24, respectively. Combined features showed an AUC value of 85.37 and 85.54% for predicting the PFS and OS of GBM patients, respectively, using the random forest (RF) classifier. We presented a multiscale texture features to characterize the GBM regions and predict he PFS and OS. The efficiency achievable suggests that this technique can be developed into a GBM MR analysis system suitable for clinical use after a thorough validation involving more patients.

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Graphical abstract Scheme of the proposed model for characterizing the heterogeneity of GBM regions and predicting the overall survival and progression free survival of GBM patients. (1) Acquisition of pretreatment MRI images; (2) Affine registration of T1-WI image with its corresponding FLAIR images, and GBM subtype (phenotypes) labelling; (3) Extraction of nine texture features from the three texture scales fine, medium, and coarse derived from each of GBM regions; (4) Comparing heterogeneity between GBM regions by ANOVA test; Survival analysis using Univariate (Spearman rank correlation between features and survival (i.e., PFS and OS) based on each of the GBM regions, Kaplan-Meier estimator and log-rank test to predict the PFS and OS of patient groups that grouped based on median of feature), and multivariate (random forest model) for predicting the PFS and OS of patients groups that grouped based on median of PFS and OS.

     

Aspirin Has a Protective Effect Against Adverse Outcomes in Patients with Nonvariceal Upper Gastrointestinal Bleeding

Digestive Diseases and Sciences - To determine the effect of aspirin and anticoagulants on clinical outcomes and cause of in-hospital death in patients with nonvariceal upper gastrointestinal...     

Value of subspecialty experience in internal medicine undergraduate training

We aimed from our study to assess how students and clinical supervisors perceive students' achievement in the internal medicine subspecialty clinical attachments in comparison with the general attachments. We conducted a cross-sectional study comparing students' self-assessment ratings during the Medicine Block general and subspecialties clinical attachments at our college of medicine during the period between February 2007 and June 2009. We assessed the level of agreement between students' self-assessment in the different subspecialties with their self-assessment in the general attachments. We repeated the same calculation for the supervisors' assessment. Eighty-three students were included; these students attended eight different clinical attachments. A total of 517 self-assessment forms were completed (120 general internal medicine clinical attachments and 397 forms in different specialty attachments). The clinical supervisors completed parallel assessment forms. The undergraduate medical students' perceived their achievement in the subspecialty attachments well. This was similar to their perception of their achievement in the general clinical attachments. The clinical supervisors perceived students achievement in the subspecialties to be similar to their achievement in the general clinical attachments. In conclusion, we do encourage the implementation of specialty and subspecialty undergraduate clinical attachments for all students as part of their curriculum requirements. Furthermore, we encourage the strategic utilization of specialties/subspecialties attachment distribution aiming to enhance students' future interest to achieve balance in the different health specialties/subspecialties manpower. Further research to support this recommendation is needed.     

Level of histamine in supernatants from the basophil activation test: applications to hymenoptera allergy and drug allergy--preliminary study

Histamine Release technic consists in calculating histamine liberated by blood cells in touch with an allergen. To this day, this method is only used in Hymenoptera venom allergy diagnosis. The principle of this study is to measure histamine released by activated basophils in surnageons of Basophil Activation Test (BAT) for different allergens: Hymenoptera venoms: Bee, White Faced Hornet, Vespula Wasp. Drugs: Cefaperos, Clamoxyl, Alfatil, Rapifen, Diprivan, Nesdonal, Mivacron. A threshold of positivity (amplification factor in comparison with the control) is determined for these two classes of allergens: 45 for Hymenoptera venoms and 9 for drugs. These results, compared to the other diagnosis technics (Histamine Release, Basophil Activation Test, Prick Tests) discloses very high correlation rates in each case. This method seems to be a reliable method for Hymenoptera venom allergy diagnosis and for drugs allergy diagnosis too. However, this study is based on a few number of patients, so a significant statistic conclusion can't be expressed but it opens an interesting way of research.     

Endocarditis‐induced thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura mimicking preeclampsia: A case report

TTP, Preeclampsia have similar manifestations in pregnancy. Establishing the right diagnosis is essential as the treatment is different. Endocarditis‐induced TTP should be suspected when neurological symptoms, thrombocytopenia are present.     

Outcomes of septic cirrhosis patients admitted to the intensive care unit: A retrospective cohort study

The aim of this study is to examine the outcome of septic patients with cirrhosis admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) and predictors of mortality.Single center, retrospective cohort study.The study was conducted in Intensive care Department of King Abdulaziz Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.Data was extracted from a prospectively collected ICU database managed by a full time data collector. All patients with an admission diagnosis of sepsis according to the sepsis-3 definition were included from 2002 to 2017. Patients were categorized into 2 groups based on the presence or absence of cirrhosis.The primary outcome of the study was in-hospital mortality. Secondary outcomes included ICU mortality, ICU and hospital lengths of stay and mechanical ventilation duration.A total of 7906 patients were admitted to the ICU with sepsis during the study period, of whom 497 (6.29%) patients had cirrhosis. 64.78% of cirrhotic patients died during their hospital stay compared to 31.54% of non-cirrhotic. On multivariate analysis, cirrhosis patients were at greater odds of dying within their hospital stay as compared to non-cirrhosis patients (Odds ratio {OR} 2.53; 95% confidence interval {CI} 2.04 – 3.15) independent of co-morbidities, organ dysfunction or hemodynamic status. Among cirrhosis patients, elevated international normalization ratio (INR) (OR 1.69; 95% CI 1.29-2.23), hemodialysis (OR 3.09; 95% CI 1.76-5.42) and mechanical ventilation (OR 2.61; 95% CI 1.60–4.28) were the independent predictors of mortality.Septic cirrhosis patients admitted to the intensive care unit have greater odds of dying during their hospital stay. Among septic cirrhosis patients, elevated INR and the need for hemodialysis and mechanical ventilation were associated with increased mortality.     

Exposure of Children to Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) and Its Association with Respiratory Ailments

Objectives. To assess the impact of domestic passive smoking (cigarettes or narghile) on the development of respiratory ailments among children ages 10-15 years. Methods. Students were recruited from five private schools in Beirut, and information on demographic, in-home smoking, and students' respiratory tract illnesses (cough, wheezing, runny nose, or nasal congestion) were collected from each participant. Results. Of 625 students surveyed, 438 (70.1%) had at least one individual smoking at home. Compared with the nonexposed group, the odds ratio of having respiratory illness for children exposed to narghile or cigarette smoke were 2.3 (95% Confidence Iinterval [CI] 1.1-5.1) and 3.2 (95% CI 1.9-5.4), respectively. Conclusions. In addition to the well-established effect of smoking, domestic passive smoking of the misconceived “innocuous” habitual smoking device, narghile, is associated with significant respiratory health ailments.